


5 Times Hansel and Gretel Saved Each Other + 1 Time They Didn’t Have To

by Maekala



Category: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 18:15:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5466152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maekala/pseuds/Maekala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hansel and Gretel get really good at saving each other.</p>
<p>Warnings: there is an attempted noncon scene that doesn't go anywhere.  There is also some descriptions of violence, but not as bad as the movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	5 Times Hansel and Gretel Saved Each Other + 1 Time They Didn’t Have To

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nerissa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nerissa/gifts).



1) Family Is All

After their parents died, Hansel and Gretel didn’t immediately become witch hunters. They were still kids, after all. A passing hunter found them wandering the woods after they killed that first witch and took them back to the village. Hansel remembered clinging to Gretel’s hand and shrinking away from any kind of food that was offered to him. He didn’t know the man’s name, but he remembered the glare the baker had given them when Hansel threw up on the man’s shoes after offering them a sweet pasty.

Gretel had smoothed his hair back from his face like Mother used to do and told him to sip at some water while adults continued to pass around them. Town officials? The sheriff? He didn’t even know. Nor did he care. He had Gretel and she never once tried to take her hand back and that was all that mattered.

Eventually they ended up in a house with a nice looking couple and all of the other adults left them. Gretel insisted he eat something and he managed to choke down some sort of meat and cheese. Maybe even some bread. But every time Gretel put a cup of water in front of him, he drank it.

He wasn’t sure how many hours (days?) he’d been holding onto Gretel, but he finally found the courage to release her as his head bobbed and sleep called to him.

“Hansel,” she said, pulling him back to something approaching wakefulness. “You should take a bath before you fall asleep.”

He would only ever admit to Gretel how little the words meant to him in that moment. And he would never have to because Gretel knew. Instead, she took his hand again and pulled him to his feet. The bathroom was full of steam and smelled like the best thing he could think of. And there were huge fluffy towels set out for the two of them. Something in his brain tried to say that this was odd, but he couldn’t place it. Anyway, Gretel was there, so what harm could come from a bath?

Gretel helped him strip out of his dirty clothes and he helped her comb the knots from her hair. The bathtub was big enough for them both and they climbed in without thought of modesty. The hot water made him instantly drowsy but it felt so good as tight muscles began to loosen. Before long they had soap suds covering Gretel’s hair and sloshing out of the tub and he actually managed to laugh when Gretel splashed water on him.

And then the door opened. He and Gretel didn’t immediately recognise the danger as the man closed it behind himself. Sure, he was a stranger, but they had faced a witch. What more danger could there be in the world? Gretel’s entire demeanour changed when the man reached down to rub himself through his pants. The only other time he’d seen a man do that had been a passing merchant who took shelter with them when they were young. He’d looked at Mother with the same predatory eye while Father had been out back. The merchant had left with two black eyes and a noticeable limp.

Hansel stood up, instantly awake. He didn’t care if he was naked. But the soap still streaming from his hair meant he was slippery like the hogs he used to wrestle.

“Sit down, boy,” the man said. “I’ll take my turn with you but I wanna try your sister first.”

The man was close enough to touch them and he tried to. He reached past Hansel toward Gretel. Before he could lay a hand on his sister, Hansel twisted the man’s hand around and broke his thumb. Some insane part of his mind noted that the witch’s bones had sounded like brittle twigs when they broke. But breaking the man’s thumb reminded him more of breaking down a chicken carcass to get at all the meat.

The difference now was the man cried out in pain and backhanded Hansel. He flopped gracelessly back into the bathtub and hit his head against the side. Blood and soapy water filled his vision as he spluttered back to the surface. But he knew Gretel’s grip when she pulled him out of the tub. The man was on the other side and cussing them crossways to hell. Gretel stood in front of Hansel, still naked as the day she was born.

“Now look here, you little snot nosed cunt. I didn’t feed you little bastards out of the kindness of my heart. You two are gonna pay your way one way or another.”

Hansel didn’t know what cunt meant, but he knew he didn’t like hearing someone call his sister that. Neither did Gretel. She hit her hand against the surface of the water still in the tub. The man reared back from the soap now in his eyes and then went down when Gretel leapt at him. She shoved her hand into his face and must’ve hit something important because blood poured from the man’s face and he stopped moving.

The woman came crashing in and fell to her knees by her husband. Gretel took a step back toward Hansel and then another when the woman turned furious eyes on them both.

“You killed him!”

“He attacked us,” answered Gretel. Her voice was somehow even and Hansel realised they’d managed to double their body count without trying either time.

The woman struck out at Gretel, managing to knock his sister down. She was crawling up and looked ready to gouge Gretel’s eyes out. Hansel only realised he’d kicked them woman when her body suddenly went flying away from Gretel. Her head hit the edge of the bathtub and she landed next to her husband’s feet, just as still as he was.

By the time he could reach for Gretel, she was already on her feet and taking his hand.

They hugged each other tightly, even though they were both still naked and soapy and he was bloody. It didn’t matter.

Gretel pulled away first, but kept hold of his hand.

“We should finish getting cleaned up,” she said. “Then we leave this godforsaken town and never come back.”

Hansel nodded. “It’s just us now.”

“Just us,” Gretel agreed. “We can’t trust anyone but us.”

2) Witches Are Everywhere

They left in the dead of night. They finished cleaning up and put on their old dirty clothes instead of what the couple had left out for them. They gathered all of the food they could carry that wouldn’t spoil plus whatever money they could find and other basic supplies. Hansel took the axe he found out back and Gretel grabbed the hunting knife and they never looked back.

They didn’t know where they were going. They’d never been more than a few miles away from their home and definitely never to this village. They waited until they had passed three villages to actually go to the market. By then they’d washed their clothes in the river and Hansel’s hair covered the gash on his head. The village was big enough and there were enough traders that no one thought twice about a couple of kids buying food. The blacksmith gave Hansel a funny look when he asked how much a crossbow cost.

With food and crossbow in hand, they left the village and headed back into the woods to where they’d set up a temporary camp. They didn’t talk much when they were alone, though Gretel looked at him funny when he started getting the shakes. He said he was fine and he usually was as long as he ate something. But it was getting worse every time and he wouldn’t be able to hide it from Gretel for much longer. Especially not since they tended to hold hands while they stared into the fire and Gretel had taken to placing a finger over his pulse point.

They had both drifted to sleep when the sound of snapping twigs startled them awake. The witch stared at them with a kind of fascination that reminded Hansel of the man in the bath but different. Both looks held a hunger he didn’t understand.

“Well aren’t you two an interesting sight?” she said, her voice raspy and her teeth nearly rotted out of her skull. Hansel squeezed Gretel’s hand tighter but showed no other sign of fear. “You should come back to my house. I have sweets.”

Hansel gagged. He couldn’t help himself. They’d learned to stay away from the bakeries or he tended to fall to his knees and vomit anything in his stomach. At least with just the mention of sugar, he managed to keep his dinner down. The witch turned a suspicious eye to him and Hansel saw her pull her wand out of her skirts. They had started seeing the story from their first witch kill in papers and apparently this witch had heard it as well.

“What’re your names?” she asked.

“Hansel and Gretel,” said Gretel. By the time the witch could blast them where they sat, Gretel had already pushed Hansel away while she rolled in the opposite direction.

Hansel came up with the crossbow and Gretel had found the axe. Unfortunately, the witch had also moved. Hansel put his back to a tree and loaded the bow. His aim wasn’t as good as Father’s had been, but he could hit something coming at him. They turned in tense circles as they waited for the witch to strike and Hansel’s hands were starting to cramp from gripping the crossbow so tight.

The tension was broken by a sudden crack and Gretel screaming Hansel’s name as the tree he’d been leaning against was suddenly not as sturdy and falling for his head. The witch was on him as he moved but he managed to get the crossbow between them and squeezed the trigger.

The force of the bolt sent the witch flying backward. By the time she hit the ground, Gretel was bringing the axe down on her neck. She screamed in fury and brought it down again, spraying blood all over herself. It took six strikes before the witch’s head rolled away from her body and only then did Hansel call his sister’s name.

They stared at each other numbly over another corpse before Gretel dropped the axe and Hansel dropped the bow and they gripped each other in an impossibly tight hug. Neither of them shed any tears but they also didn’t let go of each other until the stink of the witch drove them to pack their campsite and start moving.

3) Sugar Sickness

Over the next few months, his bouts of the shakes started getting worse. Gretel, for her part, waited until she found him in a cold sweat on the ground to ask him about it. And then she didn’t so much ask him as tell him they were going to the village to find a doctor. He insisted he just needed to eat something and he’d be fine. Gretel did help him choke a bit of meat and cheese down and it did at least help him stand on his own, but it no longer chased the symptoms away completely.

Gretel spent the rest of the night packing their things away and glaring at him. By first light, she had stashed their growing collection of weapons and was ready to march into town. Hansel made another attempt to convince Gretel he was fine but she didn’t even bother to answer him. Instead, she poked him with her foot and stole the blanket he’d kept out while she packed.

The town doctor was not happy when they started pounding on his door barely an hour after dawn but he at least had clothes on so they hadn’t woken him. Gretel showed him one of the gold coins they had from killing a witch a few towns over (who knew their witch magnetism could be so lucrative?) and he waved them in.

Gretel explained what had been happening and Hansel realised she’d noticed a helluva lot more than he thought. The doctor poked and prodded Hansel during the entire story. It was because the doctor was so close that Hansel saw the moment he realised what was wrong. The man’s eyes dimmed and his hands gentled.

He handed the coin back to Gretel who looked furious.

“I’m going to die,” said Hansel.

“No, you’re not,” insisted Gretel. She’d had a growth spurt and was now six inches taller than he was and he’d never thought of her as intimidating to him before but now she looked like she wanted to intimidate the sickness out of him. If anyone could, it was Gretel. Unfortunately, no one could.

“I’m afraid he is,” said the doctor.

Hansel grabbed Gretel’s arm before she do something stupid like hit him. He was only telling her what Hansel had secretly begun to fear the first time he got the shakes.

“This is known as the sugar sickness,” the doctor said. “It is witch magic. There is nothing I can do.”

“You have to try!” demanded Gretel. “There has to be something we can do.”

He turned away from them to wash his hands in a basin of water but Hansel saw the spark of an idea in his eye. “What?” he asked.

Gretel looked between the two of them and stepped forward to take Hansel’s hand in her own. She would hold his hand forever if he meant he didn’t leave her. And Hansel would hold just as hard.

“There is a story. A rumour, really. I have heard that the Travellers know of something to lessen the sickness. Not a cure, mind you. But they can help the symptoms. I don’t know if it’s true, but it could not hurt to ask them.”

Gretel froze as her mind started working overtime. The Travellers were nomads. Some called them gypsies, but few did so to their faces. They crossed the countryside in family groups of perhaps two dozen. Villagers had called Hansel and Gretel gypsies a few times because Travellers made camp off the roads. More importantly, they’d heard what sounded like a Traveller caravan barely a week before. The weather was turning cold and the area was good with game. Gretel had speculated that the group was camping for the winter.

“Thank you, doctor,” Gretel said, clearly distracted before grabbing Hansel’s arm and dragging him out the door. Hansel noticed that the gold coin stayed on the table next to where he’d been sitting.

By noon, they had their packs and were heading back the way they’d come.

 

Travelling as fast as Hansel could and with a purpose, they made it back to the spot they’d heard the Travellers in four days. It was midday instead of evening this time so they didn’t hear any music, but Gretel remembered which way she’d heard them and pulled Hansel off the path with a determined stride.

They found signs that a caravan had been through here and had kept going away from the path. Small bits of coloured glass told them they were following the right trail. Gretel kept them going until near sunset by which time Hansel’s clothes were soaked from the cold sweat he’d broken into and he could barely stand. He felt Gretel sit him down on a log and then everything faded to darkness.

He woke to the sound of Gretel’s voice. Her different voice. She had a voice that she used just with him. It was indulgent and loving and the only part of home he had left. The voice she used now was the one she used when she was talking a mob down.

“Please. My brother has the sugar sickness. The village doctor couldn’t help him but we heard you might know something.”

“Even if we could help you, why should we?” someone was asking. They spoke with an accent he couldn’t place.

“We can pay you.”

“You are children.”

“They are Hansel and Gretel,” said another voice. This sounded like an old woman. She had that same accent and Hansel couldn’t help the shiver that she might be a witch. He could never see an older woman again without wondering what she was hiding beneath her shawl. “They play at being witch hunters.”

“We don’t play,” said Gretel, her voice hard and proud. They hadn’t asked for this life, but it had landed in their laps when they encountered a fourth witch trying to kill them on the road. After that, they’d started carrying more weapons than anything else. “Witches try to kill us. We just get there first.”

Wrinkled hands grabbed his face and Hansel started to lash out, but Gretel’s hand fell on his shoulder. Someone pried his eyes open and the woman in front of him wasn’t as old as she sounded. Her eyes were sharp and her breath smelled of chewing tobacco, not rot. He relaxed somewhat.

“I can give him something to stop this attack. But he will continue to have attacks. It is the nature of the sugar sickness. You will need to learn to make the medicine.”

“Okay. We’ll pay you to teach us.”

The woman pulled away but Hansel’s eyes managed to stay open. He saw the woman considering them both. Half a dozen other Travellers had them surrounded and Hansel realised he should probably be standing ready to defend his sister but he was pretty sure he would end up on the ground if he moved.

“What I will teach you is something no Traveller has ever taught to an outsider. That debt is more than simply money. The two of you will travel with us for a year. I will teach you both and you will work with the company to pay your debt.”

Gretel turned to Hansel and he could see she was ready to agree to save his life. “You should know that witches attack us any chance they get. If we travel with you, they’ll attack you, too.”

“Witches attack Traveller caravans anyway. Part of your work will be to protect the caravan.”

Hansel managed to nod to Gretel. “Done.”

4) Love and War

With the Travellers, teenagers started taking lovers when they felt comfortable doing so. Even though they were still young, Gretel began exploring her sexuality a few months into their stay. She took lovers of both sexes and quickly learned the potion that would keep her from becoming heavy with child. Hansel watched it all with some small bit of sadness at his sister exploring things without him. But a few months later he and a few of the other teenagers were by the river with the washing and then everyone was naked and he was noticing Carmilla and Diego and not knowing who he was more attracted to and then they were both rubbing against him and he decided he liked them both.

When they left the Travellers, they were both seventeen and had stayed longer than a year. Dia, the old woman who had taught them, had told them their thirst for witch hunting was beyond what even the Travellers did. They each had a bloodlust the Travellers could not sate. And so they parted ways but with the promise they were always welcome back if they needed a respite.

The first time they visited a tavern, they had both forgotten that not everyone was as open with their love as the Travellers. The first night, Hansel had enjoyed a quick jerk and fuck with one of the barmaids. He was still horribly shy and awkward and he didn’t always understand signals people were giving him. Apparently, she was giving him the signal that she expected something in return. Something a bit more substantial than a lick and suck. Which was a shame because he’d been taught how to give oral by both Diego and Carmilla and he was rather talented, if he did say so himself.

When the tavern owner came knocking and asking for the bits of silver he owed, he wasn’t at his best. He’d been in the middle of an excellent dream featuring his two favourite Travellers with cameos from Gretel and he’d also maybe had quite a bit to drink before he and...Janet? Tina? Had had their fun.

“Look, boy. I ain’t running no fucking charity. You screw one of my girls, you pay up.”

“I didn’t screw one of your girls,” Hansel said. He could hear Gretel coming up the stairs. She’d be able to explain to the man that he was mistaking him for someone else. And then Hansel could go back to bed.

“You fucked Trina in the storeroom! Now pay up or my brother is gonna come take payment in kind.”

“What the hell does Trina have to do with your brother?”

The only reason he knew the man had tried to hit him was because Gretel’s hand was suddenly in front of his face where she’d caught the man’s fist. She pushed the idiot back against the opposite wall and said something quiet to him. Hansel watched it all quietly and tried not to think about how hot he found it when Gretel got like this. For Gretel, he would wake up. But mostly because she would wear him out again.

The man finally stormed back down the stairs but was definitely giving them a death glare. For that matter, Gretel was looking a little annoyed at him, too.

“What?” he asked.

“The next time you fuck someone, make sure she’s not a prostitute.”

“Huh?”

Gretel pushed him back in the room by punching him in the arm. “Trina gets paid for her services. And you forgot to pay her.”

“Oh.” He thought about what she had just said. “Oh!”

“Uh huh.”

“Oh.”

5) Brotherly Love

As they became more well known, they found occasional admirers. Most of Hansel’s fans were young women who either wanted to have his babies (which was just weird and also made him glad the Travellers had taught them a potion for men) or just wanted the bragging rights that they’d fucked Hansel. Although there was a memorable man who wanted to be tied down and fucked by the famous witch hunter. Normally Hansel preferred to receive, but he’d made an exception that night.

Gretel, on the other hand, got the crazies who wanted to be the man she settled down for. Or the occasional asshole who wanted to forcibly tame her. Luckily, they could both spot them from a mile away. They frequently went home barely able to walk. They rarely had the capacity to fuck anything for at least six months. Gretel had perfected her aim. What they weren’t expecting was Marcus.

Hansel wasn’t entirely sure what Marcus did in whatever nameless village they were in tonight. He was more concerned with the fact that the area they were in, they had about a 50-50 chance of the witch being a swamp witch and he’d already had to burn one set of clothes this month because of swamp witch stink. He really didn’t want to burn another.

When Gretel came back to their room after her first visit with Marcus, he knew the idiot had been gentle. Gretel always fucked him the hardest when a lover had been gentle. She hated gentle. The second night, Marcus had at least tried to step up because Gretel had come back laughing and sucked Hansel off before pushing him back under the bed. The third night she was glad they were done with the witch because she came back totally exasperated.

“He told you he loves you,” Hansel guessed. Gretel had pulled him onto the bed and wrapped his arm around her middle.

“Fucking men,” Gretel grumbled. “Why does everything have to be true love? What happened to fucking and having a good time and not talking in the morning?”

“Want me to go pretend to be the super protective big brother?”

Gretel punched him in the shoulder. But it didn’t hurt that much, so she wasn’t actually mad at him. “I dealt with it. But it pisses me off. Now I don’t even want sex. Men make it too complicated.”

“Sorry. If you want, I’ll lay here and you can use me however you want. Just make sure I’m covered when you’re done.”

Gretel laughed into his shoulder before breathing in his scent and tucking herself into his big spoon. She wouldn’t stay there long since she kicked in her sleep, but it was nice to have her this close for now. And if he saw Marcus in the morning when they left, he’d punch the guy so Gretel didn’t have to kick him in the balls. She hated having to deal with that shit first thing in the morning.

 

They didn’t see Marcus while they were grabbing breakfast or packing their gear. They didn’t see Marcus as they headed out of town with a few stops for supplies. They had forgotten about Marcus by lunch when they were trying to decide which way to go at the fork in the road a mile ahead.

They glanced up at the sound of a horse trotting along the road expecting to see a merchant. Instead, Marcus had a bulky looking pack slung across the horse’s back that he nearly knocked off when he dismounted.

“I’m so sorry, Gretel. I didn’t realise we were leaving so early. It won’t happen again.”

Hansel frowned and switched the grip on the knife he’d been using to cut an apple. Gretel rolled her eyes. “It won’t happen again because you’re going back to the village. I told you: you’re not coming with us.”

“But I want to be the one you come back to at night. I’ll have dinner waiting and I’ll make sure your clothes are washed of all the mud or blood or whatever. I’ll learn to clean your guns. Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do!”

Gretel stood, clearly not amused. “No. You won’t. Go home.”

“I know you and your brother are close,” Marcus said, glancing at Hansel with some serious hostility and now Hansel put his lunch down and stood up behind Gretel. He wouldn’t throw the first punch because that would make Gretel pissed at him, but he would sure as shit make sure the dumb bastard didn’t get in a lucky shot. “But can he really give you everything you need?”

“Yeah. Actually. He can. Even if he couldn’t, I said no to you and that’s all you need to know.”

“But!”

“I said no! If you really love me, then you’ll respect my decision.”

Marcus deflated and fell to his knees. Honestly, the whole thing was ludicrous and Hansel just wanted to get Gretel as far away from this creeper as possible. Gretel backed up a few steps until she was past Hansel and wouldn’t be turning her back on a crazy man. She grabbed their packs and tossed them into the cart. When they were ready to go, she came back long enough to give Marcus a considering look.

“You’re going to make some girl really happy one day. Just not me. It’s me and Hansel and that’s all either of us need. I’m sorry.”

Hansel watched the way Marcus tensed at the words and the pity in Gretel’s voice. When the idiot went to lunge at Gretel’s retreating back, Hansel made sure his fist and the butt of his knife connected solidly with the guy’s gut. It wasn’t enough to hurt him badly, but he was winded and had a moment of terror where he thought Hansel had just stabbed him.

While Marcus was down on the ground, Hansel turned the horse back toward the village and clapped the animal on the rump to send him running home. Marcus should be able to walk before long and he’d have no choice but to return to the village. They left him groaning on the side of the road.

When they hit the fork, Gretel made a split second decision to go right. Hansel took her hand and squeezed it.

“Thanks for not actually stabbing him,” she said.

“Fucker shows up again and I will go all protective big brother.”

She gave him the barest of smiles and messed up his hair. “That’s so cute, little brother.”

+1) More Than Blood

Hansel didn’t know how the fuck this witch had made little goblin minions, but he was already tired of them. Every time he turned around, there was another one of the little fuckers keeping him from killing this bitch and finding out if the goblin things needed her to live. He and Gretel had gotten split up again but he could hear her a few feet away dealing with her own batch of green fuckers.

When he could finally see Gretel, he had a moment of panic as he saw her fighting two of the little beasties and a third coming up behind her with some razor sharp claws. He was always there to save her just like she was always there to save him. Before he could even scream her name, a giant brown foot came down on the goblin, squishing it into the ground like a bug.

He looked up to see Edward smashing the things like ants with the biggest grin on his face Hansel had ever seen. Great. Goblin smashing was a game to the big lug. He turned back to his own fight in time to see two more coming for his head. And then they splattered into a tree. Ben was to his right and his aim was finally getting better.

Hansel couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face as he and Gretel faced the witch side by side. She definitely didn’t look as confident as she had when she released the little buggers. They had extra eyes watching their backs now. These fuckers were gonna hurt even worse now.

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide, Nerissa! I hope you liked your fic! I had a blast writing it.


End file.
